Touchpad and mouse buttons are in an awkward position. No physical scroll buttons next to the screen. Pricey for netbook parts. Virtual keyboard is practically unusable.

Bottom Line

The Viliv S7's Lilliputian size goes against the netbook grain, and comes complete with a 32GB SSD, QWERTY keyboard, and tablet functions.

With the Viliv brand in place, Yukyung Technologies is eager to share Korea's infatuation with Lilliputian products. The Viliv S5 Premium, which we reviewed recently, didn't quite measure up to our standards. This time around, the company takes a stab at the netbook genre. The Viliv S7 is no ordinary netbook, since it doubles as a convertible tablet, with a resistive touchscreen. Never mind the cramped keyboard or an eye-straining 7-inch widescreen, because there's a select group of users who rather see netbooks stay tiny and portable than blur the line between netbooks and laptops. And then there's the 32GB solid state drive (SSD), which is a netbook rarity these days. The two things that really stand in the S7's way, though, are a hefty price ($650) and the touchpad's odd placement. Clearly, this isn't a device for everyone.

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Design
The first netbooks started out with 9-inch widescreens and are now headed into the 11 and 12-inch territory. Interestingly, the S7 heads in the other direction, opting for a 7-inch widescreen. It's tinier than the ASUS EeePC T91, which uses the same frame as the original EeePC 4G. And because it's tinier, the S7 weighs just 1.8 pounds and measures 9.1-by-5.1-by-1.1 inches (HWD). Comparatively, the Sony LifeStyle PC (VGN-588EQ) uses a similar form factor, except it houses an 8-inch screen and weighs less (1.4 lbs). The S7's frame comes in white or black and clearly has the look and feel of the material it's made fromplastic. It lacks the style and colors of the LifeStyle PC, the cool metals of the HP Mini 5101, and the textures of the Editors' Choice Toshiba mini NB205.

Features
A7-inch widescreen is a lot smaller than the standard 10-inch widescreens found in most netbooks. Yet, the 1,024-by-600 resolution is the same. The lack of screen real estate isn't a deal breaker, though, especially if portability is the number-one priority. The S5 Premium's downfall is that it didn't have a physical keyboard, relying instead on its touch interface. Consequently, the S7's small screen meant that a cramped keyboard came for the ride. It uses an 84% keyboard, which is 5% smaller than the ones found in the Acer Aspire One (D250-1165) and Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2. It's there for punching in Web addresses, networking with Twitter and Facebook, and typing up short e-mails. Larger tasks will require plenty of patience or a separate USB keyboard. More frustrating, however, is the placement of the touchpad and the mouse buttons. They're located above the keyboard, over to the right where a power button would normally sit. The mouse buttons flank the touchpad in the same fashion as those of the HP mini 1000, which make them difficult to use with one hand.

If the keyboard is not your cup of tea, there is an alternative: The 7-inch screen is touch-enabled. You can also rotate it 180 degrees so that it lays flat against the keyboard. Because it's a resistive touchscreen, it requires a bit of pressure from your fingers in order to launch applications, navigate menus, and type on that awful virtual keyboard (part of the S7's software bundle). A physical button on the side of the screen changes its orientation: In portrait mode, the S7 works well with long Web pages and reads comfortably as an e-book reader. What it lacks, however, are physical scrolling buttons. Trying to scroll a Web page by squeezing my finger into the browser's scroll bar was a frustrating endeavor.

There is an abundance of included software, most of which are developed in-house by the company. The awful virtual keyboard I was referring to is called Viliv's SoftKeyboard. It also comes with multimedia interface, which are basically graphical shortcuts to audio, video, and application files. The S7 comes with its own custom browser, which didn't work as well (FireFox 3.5 or Google Chrome are your best bets for speed). Since it's using Windows XP Home Edition, most full-blown applicationsMicrosoft Office 2007, Adobe Acrobat, Apple iTunes 8.2will run on the S7. The EeePC T91, on the other, has a better software bundle, as it's fined-tuned for touch, responded well, and looked great on a graphics level.

Unlike the S5, the S7 has two USB ports that worked well with numerous external peripherals. It has a proprietary port that accepts optional dongles with VGA-Out, Component-Out, and Composite Out connections. The S7 is also equipped with multiple wireless devices, one of which is 3G HSPAa $119 option. It has 802.11g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as well.

The 32GB SSD is a rarity, since most netbooks are opting for capacity instead of durability and faster transfer speedscharacteristics of SSDs. It's the primary reason why this netbook is pricey. A 16GB drive is available for $100 less, but it may not be enough room to run the soon-to-ship Windows 7, Microsoft's forthcoming operating system. There's a dedicated memory card slot and a VGA-Out, but no Ethernet port built-in.

Performance
Performance is limited by the Intel Atom "Z" platform. On paper, the partsa 1.33GHz, Intel Atom Z520 processor, 1GB of DDR2 memory, and Intel GMA 500 graphicsare identical to those of the Acer Aspire One (A0751h)an oversized netbook, mind you. It loses some performance ground against bigger netbooks like the Toshiba NB205 and HP 5101, which use faster Intel Atom Platforms (N-Series). In video encoding tests, the S7's score was consistent with that of the A0751h and ASUS EeePC 1101HAbigger netbooks that run on the same parts. Against the HP 5101 and the Toshiba NB205, however, the S7 didn't fare as well, due to its slower processor. The S7 claims that it supports 720p HD playback, and it played my 720p video file without a hiccup. A 1080p video clip, on the other hand, nearly brought it to its knees.

The 27Wh battery performed like a trooper on the MobileMark 2007 battery test. The S7 scored 7 hours 20 minutes, beating the Acer A0751h (7:15) by 5 minutes and the ASUS 1101HA (6:50) by 30 minutes. It was no match for the Toshiba NB205's bigger 63Wh battery, however, which scored 8 hours 27 minutes. Nevertheless, 7 hours of battery life is very impressive and should make any long-distance traveler happy.

There's a faction within the netbook community who'd rather see these devices keep their tiny form-factors than venture into mainstream territory. Yukyung Tech believes that there's still a market for PCs smaller than your average netbook. The Viliv S7 might cost more than what some are willing to pay for netbook parts, but it's one of the few remaining ones that are this tiny, run on SSD drives, and amasses 7 hours of battery life.

Cisco Cheng is the Lead Analyst of the laptop team at PCMag.com. He’s a one-man wrecking crew who tests and writes about anything considered a laptop (yes, even netbooks). He’s been with PC Mag for over 10 years and gets occasional headaches from all the technical knowledge he has absorbed during that time. He’d still be snowboarding and playing basketball had he not been through multiple knee surgeries (well, two). Now he spends his time with Google Reader, the iPhone 3G, and his now 3-year...
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